Recreating D&D, with physics! (Burning GURPS)

[Xechon]

As some of you may know from my previous threads (here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11756940#post11756940) and here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=218827), respectively), I have been thinking about how to make a new role-playing system that would fix many of the problems of D&D 3.5e (4.0 screwed up more things than it fixed, and I'd like WOW to stay on my computer anyway). I have been directed to two systems that are largely what I want, Burning Wheels (http://www.filestube.com/a3b6cc418af5cef103e9,g/Burning-Wheel-Core-Rules.html) and GURPS (http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG31-0004). These are both amazing systems, but I want more, and conformation of accuracy of physics. My goal is a system that simply allows you to accurately simulate real life, while changing most, if not all, mechanics to be customizable within reality, so a person can create a unique, completely detailed character that the player would know well enough to care about them. Then, explain and stat the supernatural until not possible (can't completely explain magic, because, well, it doesn't really exist), and add fantasy.

I realize that some of my arguments in my previous threads were completely moronic, and I really need to start thinking more, but here is what I currently have in terms of ideas I can think of at the moment. WARNING: I am horrendous at conveying 100% accurate meanings in text, and at times I can get caught up in events (mainly school) and not reply for a while, but I don't want to have too many posts on the same thing, albeit with a different mindset and new ideas. Therefore, if there is any chance of confusion when you read, please ask me about it, and I am sorry for any thread resurrection that may occur. Also, as seen above, I may rant from time to time.

Red letters mean I need to work on this or come up with a equation or mechanic for it.

Please comment about anything you can to help, no matter how trivial. I love criticism, ideas, compliments, and pretty much support in general, so thank you in advance for any help.

Basics:

Roll Method
Chance is always present, but is usually more neutral than extreme positive or negative. Many would agree with me there, especially those who make use of the 3d6 bell curve variant. But I still don't like that, I want luck to be represented positive and negative, and and even chance of each, getting smaller as the numbers become higher (or lower negative). Here is what I currently want to use: (+d6)+(-d6). So you would have two six-sided dice of different colors, determine which is positive and which is negative before playing, then roll and add them together, for a range of -5 to 5. Zero would be the most common result, and +/- of each number would have an equal chance to occur, with +/- 5 being least common.

Skills
Skills will be everything that your character can do, and is effectively a measure of how well (s)he can do it. Skills are only checked if the question "Did (s)he succeed at attempting this?" is present. Routine actions for the particular race with that approximate rank in the related skill need not be rolled for, even if there is a chance of failure. Ex.) A human with normal "stats" can walk on a flat, wide surface with no unusual obstructions or circumstances without a check. However, on a narrow, slippery, obstructed or rough surface, or when the character is pushing his/her speed or running up stairs, a balance check is required. Also, this check is required once for the encounter, not at every step (meaning until interrupted, and in combat your considered permanently interrupted), and the check result determines if and then when the character fails, or to what degree they succeed.

Skills do not exist for situations based on creativity, as that is supposed to be one of the few things supplied by the player, to keep the game fun without hurting reality and immersion. An example from 3.5e is that the "Move Silently" skill will be supported, but not "Hide", because the player needs to decide on the hiding place. The GM would then determine the effectiveness of that spot to conceal you from notice, apply a relative modifier, then test the opponent's notice. Outside knowledge and metagaming are still disallowed, and there are still knowledge and sense skills that are to be used when relevant.

Since skills are everything, there is no way to list them all. Therefore, a template and rules for creation are needed. When you are good at something, it gets harder to improve, and we all know that some things are harder than others. Also, some skills help each other, you can help or train another in a skill if you are knowledgeable in it, and knowledge can help but not replace experience. You get better at something as you do it more, and sometimes you can learn more from a failure than a success, although failure usually has consequences.

Therefore, I can say that a skill gains "XP" as it is used, increases faster if challenged, and you can learn from your own and others' failures if you know what went wrong. Since things get harder to improve as you improve, skills can need an exponential amount of XP to gain levels. The equation will be this: (Current rank+1)^x, when x is the difficulty exponent. All skills need to be somewhat equal for game balance, and since some skills are easier than others, there needs to be a starting rank. A skills starting rank is based on the character's stats.

Knowledge skills are special, as you don't roll them to do something, you roll to know something. They can be used to train yourself or others, or simply help yourself or others at an attempt in that skill. To help yourself, you simply check the knowledge skill and then check the skill being used and add them together and divide by 2. Training yourself just means that you gain XP in that skill as if you were being trained (so, faster than alone) up to the rank you have in that knowledge skill, or the limit from your stats, whichever comes first. Helping or training others does essentially the same thing, except when helping, you test knowledge and convey message, and take the lowest of the two, then it combines with the other person's skill /2 as usual. When teaching, you test knowledge and convey message and the lowest is the max rank you can give the person a training XP bonus to.

Gaining experience in a skill is largely dependent on you current rank and the DC you are going against. Nothing in this entire post is official, but I say XP=DC-skill mod. (Trained, maybe you gain (related knowledge skill check)/(trainee's current skill rank)* the normal XP they would receive). That way, you usually gain 1-5 XP on a success. If you fail, however, test a related knowledge skill and subtract the failed result from the knowledge result. For that many turns afterward, you gain a +1 bonus on that skill check against the same thing, and the modifiers stack. This modifier does not count to your skill mod, so you gain more experience from a success after a failure than just a success.

Skills should be specific, having one action that can be done, while knowledge skills are more broad. Need way of training knowledge skills that would explain how swordplay is similar but not the same among swords.

When a skill check is made against a DC, subtract the check result from the DC to get the degree of success or failure. The effect of these are explained in the skill descriptions.

Skills must get worse when not used for an extended amount of time. Maybe from stats changing like that and a max penalty for being "rusty" that goes away quickly.

Skill Name (Template)
Difficulty Exponent
Root Stat (Knowledge yes/no)

Success: What happens if you succeed, and what happens for every 1 you succeed by.

Failure: What happens if you fail, and what happens for every 1 you fail by.

Special: Anything not included in the original fail/succeed spectrum.

Stats
I'm having the hardest time with these. What I'm thinking right now is Constitution, Agility, Strength, Sense, Acumen, Intelligence, and Mentality. Also, I'm not sure if I should have them separate from the skill system, or within it. Here is what I'm thinking right now:

Have the stats outside the skill system, have them be the max amount related skills can be, and they all have their own special use (Speed for Agi, Carrying Cap. for Str, etc.)

Will have Int points split between points in the theory of multiple intelligences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences). Probably will have Str divided into main muscle groups, etc.

I'm done for now. I have more ideas, more things to say, but I have other things that need getting done, and I'm already getting tired. Leave comments and I will try to respond as quick as possible, and don't worry, I'll tidy up this post.

[Xechon]

Saved for more content.

[Xechon]

Three's the magic number.

[erikun]

Roll Method
Chance is always present, but is usually more neutral than extreme positive or negative. Many would agree with me there, especially those who make use of the 3d6 bell curve variant. But I still don't like that, I want luck to be represented positive and negative, and and even chance of each, getting smaller as the numbers become higher (or lower negative).
I'm not too sure you need dice or random chance, especially if you're going for something "realistic". If someone is shooting a gun at you, you don't stand their and hope you get lucky with them missing; you hide behind something (ensuring they miss) or their skill with a firearm determines if they are able to hit out. Dice could be nice at simplifying chance, though.

You might want to take a look at Fudge dice (dF). They are six-sided dice with two + sides, to - sides, and two blank sides. Heck, you might want to check out Fudge as well (http://www.fudgerpg.com/goodies/fudge-files/core/). It is probably too rules-light for your project, but a number of ideas (such as skill ranks having names like Mediocre or Superb rather than numbers) might be something you'd want to incorporate.


Skills
Routine actions for the particular race with that approximate rank in the related skill need not be rolled for, even if there is a chance of failure. Ex.) A human with normal "stats" can walk on a flat, wide surface with no unusual obstructions or circumstances without a check.
Fudge uses 2dF for all rolls, so that, for instance, it would literally be impossible for someone who is Good at a skill to fail at a task of only Poor difficulty (such as walking down the street). The street would need to be far more difficult to walk down, or the character would need a lot of penalities, in order to fail such a task. In that sense, your original dice idea would probably allow auto-successes such as this anyways.


Skills do not exist for situations based on creativity, as that is supposed to be one of the few things supplied by the player, to keep the game fun without hurting reality and immersion. An example from 3.5e is that the "Move Silently" skill will be supported, but not "Hide", because the player needs to decide on the hiding place.
This does seem kind of arbitrary. I mean, I could just hide under a box (http://images.wikia.com/metalgear/images/7/7c/THEBOX.jpg) and nobody would ever notice me, but I could literally be silenced and floating through the air, but someone might hear me?

A bit more seriously, you may have people either trying to abuse such rules (walking around inside a box all the time) or trying to find situations where they can similarly auto-succeed at rolls (I attack while his back is turned! That's an auto-kill, right?)

If you are going to be including dice for a chance of randomness, then you should probably include them in all situations. There is a chance that the guard noticed your boot sticking from behind that mailbox, or see that bush moving unnaturally against the wind, or saw that box walking around - all those would be up to chance and valid reasons to include a dice roll.


Also, some skills help each other, you can help or train another in a skill if you are knowledgeable in it, and knowledge can help but not replace experience.
Just a note, but knowledge (and possibly quite a few other things) don't necessarily need to be skills. If you know your phone number or your parents' names, that doesn't mean you have skill ranks in Knowledge (stuff about home). You could just have the knowledge, just as you could just have equipment, rather than rolling your Equipment (adventuring gear) to see if you brought along a 10-foot pole.


Therefore, I can say that a skill gains "XP" as it is used, increases faster if challenged, and you can learn from your own and others' failures if you know what went wrong. Since things get harder to improve as you improve, skills can need an exponential amount of XP to gain levels. The equation will be this: (Current rank+1)^x, when x is the difficulty exponent. All skills need to be somewhat equal for game balance, and since some skills are easier than others, there needs to be a starting rank. A skills starting rank is based on the character's stats.
Burning Wheel works because it is relatively simple to track "experience" for skills. Requiring keeping track of tens or hundreds of XP seperately for each skill will likely be bothersome to do, either keeping tabs as you use the skills or the GM keeping tabs and assigning XP for each skill individually at the end of the session.

That said, I do believe the Runequest RPG keeps track of experience for skills seperately. I am not familiar with the system and haven't looked it over myself, but you might want to check it out.

Also, if you want to get into such granularity, you might want to look at sub-skills. That is, a big general "Science" skill, then a more specific "Physics" skill, and then a still more specific "Nuclear Engineering" skill. The more specific skills could require a higher "difficulty exponent", or perhaps specific skills for Nuclear Engineering would simply require very high challange numbers (since you'd likely be adding your ability, Science, Physics, and N. Engineering all together for it).


Knowledge skills are special, as you don't roll them to do something, you roll to know something. They can be used to train yourself or others, or simply help yourself or others at an attempt in that skill.
As I mentioned before, a radical idea is to treat knowledge not as a skill to be rolled, but as something your character possesses like equipment. :smalltongue: It would mean keeping track of stuff like what they learned individually, but they would not need to be rolling to see if they retroactively knew something for years.

Note that there is a difference between Knowledge skills (rolling to see if the character remembers a specific fact) and Practical skills (rolling to see if the character is capable of a specific skill). Nuclear Engineering, above, is more than a specific fact, and so a roll would involve the character piecing together everything they know and implementing it correctly to do whatever needs to be done in regards to nuclear physics. Knowledge about light water reactors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_water_reactor), though, would be a specific fact that the character either possesses or not, and they would not be able to design a light water nuclear reactor without some knowledge that it might exist.

(The reasoning for this is twofold. One, it stops character from needing to spend or track XP on stuff they really should know anyways. Two, it prevents characters from spontaneously making technological advances just from having high skills. Yes, I am sure that Timmy is very skilled and knowledgeable. No, that does not automatically mean he can build starships with lightspeed travel in his basement.)


Skills should be specific, having one action that can be done, while knowledge skills are more broad. Need way of training knowledge skills that would explain how swordplay is similar but not the same among swords.
Why? You might have fancing swords, side swords, arming swords, and hand-and-a-half swords, but there isn't much difference between swords in the same categories. A claymore and flamberge are basically the same weapon, wielded the same way with the same general properities. If you are talking about arming swords vs. hand-and-a-half swords, then the two are handled entirely differently and require different skills to use effectively. But there isn't really that much difference between a dao and a sabre.


Skills must get worse when not used for an extended amount of time.
This depends on what kind of game you want to play, really. If it is intended as a lengthy game of attrition, then yeah, I could see this applying. If it is meant as short adventures with some downtime, then this doesn't make much sense.

I would recommend it being an optional rule, if you include it.


Stats
I'm having the hardest time with these. What I'm thinking right now is Constitution, Agility, Strength, Sense, Acumen, Intelligence, and Mentality.
These are probably going to be the most arbitrary part of the system, simply because they could be broken up and represented differently for any kind of interpretation. For example, why Sense and Acumen, when Acumen is how keen your senses are? What is the difference between Intelligence and Mentality, when Intelligence is already broken up into multiple parts? Why Constitution, and not a Resolve or Willpower mental equilivant?

You might want to consider what your system will do, then create the stats to match it. If there is intended to be heavy social and political focus, then you will want a number of social stats. If a large part of the game will focus on tactical combat and researching new technologies, then organization and research would probably be worthy of stats.

[Xechon]

I'm not too sure you need dice or random chance, especially if you're going for something "realistic". If someone is shooting a gun at you, you don't stand their and hope you get lucky with them missing; you hide behind something (ensuring they miss) or their skill with a firearm determines if they are able to hit out. Dice could be nice at simplifying chance, though.

Okay, here we go. Apparently there were a million and two communication errors, so this will be fun. Dice are there to simulate "chance", or just the many tiny variables that only a computer could keep track of. If someone is shooting at you, you get out of the way. If you are heroic at dodging, then you will have a chance at avoiding bullets if the person isn't all that good of a shot, but cover, or just blocking with an object, is much more reliable when being shot at. And, unless you get behind a wall, cover isn't 100% at not getting hit.


You might want to take a look at Fudge dice (dF). They are six-sided dice with two + sides, to - sides, and two blank sides. Heck, you might want to check out Fudge as well (http://www.fudgerpg.com/goodies/fudge-files/core/). It is probably too rules-light for your project, but a number of ideas (such as skill ranks having names like Mediocre or Superb rather than numbers) might be something you'd want to incorporate.

Fudge was the inspiration for the +/- chance dice. I like a +/-5 better than 4 though, so thats why I wanted to use this instead. The skill rank names is something I've been thinking about using for sake of immersion, but I'm just not sure yet.


Fudge uses 2dF for all rolls, so that, for instance, it would literally be impossible for someone who is Good at a skill to fail at a task of only Poor difficulty (such as walking down the street). The street would need to be far more difficult to walk down, or the character would need a lot of penalities, in order to fail such a task. In that sense, your original dice idea would probably allow auto-successes such as this anyways.

But it is possible for a master to fail at a trivial tast, its just not common. I probably need a critical mechanic, but I'm not sure I want to include one, because I want the +5 and -5 to count for what they are. I'll probably add one explosion/implosion style, but I'm gonna try to think of a different mechanic for that first.


This does seem kind of arbitrary. I mean, I could just hide under a box (http://images.wikia.com/metalgear/images/7/7c/THEBOX.jpg) and nobody would ever notice me, but I could literally be silenced and floating through the air, but someone might hear me?

A bit more seriously, you may have people either trying to abuse such rules (walking around inside a box all the time) or trying to find situations where they can similarly auto-succeed at rolls (I attack while his back is turned! That's an auto-kill, right?)

If you are hiding in a box, you would get a bonus, not an insurance, that says people will have a harder time seeing you. However, theres also the question "Why the heck is there a box here?", unless it looks in its place. If someone is floating through the air silenced, no one is going to hear them, but it shouldn't be too hard to spot them.

If someone is walking around in a box, people are going to wonder "why is that box moving?" or "wasn't it just over there?", so the bonus would be reduced at the very least, or even a negative if the player is really bad at being silent and doesn't move the box to the right locations.


If you are going to be including dice for a chance of randomness, then you should probably include them in all situations. There is a chance that the guard noticed your boot sticking from behind that mailbox, or see that bush moving unnaturally against the wind, or saw that box walking around - all those would be up to chance and valid reasons to include a dice roll.

Yes, die roll for all skills. Move silently will just be called "Stealth", and therefore, anything that requires stealth is checked with this skill, roll (+d6)+(-d6) and roll for the foe's awareness (roll once, apply to spot, listen, smell, etc.)


Just a note, but knowledge (and possibly quite a few other things) don't necessarily need to be skills. If you know your phone number or your parents' names, that doesn't mean you have skill ranks in Knowledge (stuff about home). You could just have the knowledge, just as you could just have equipment, rather than rolling your Equipment (adventuring gear) to see if you brought along a 10-foot pole.

I see what you're getting at, but the problem is that you can't possibly keep track of every bit of info a character knows. For simple things like mentioned above, you can just assume, unless your character is mentally retarded, or doesn't need to know the phone number (cell phones), they know that. I know it makes sense that knowledge should be listed as equipment, but it just doesn't work that way.


Burning Wheel works because it is relatively simple to track "experience" for skills. Requiring keeping track of tens or hundreds of XP seperately for each skill will likely be bothersome to do, either keeping tabs as you use the skills or the GM keeping tabs and assigning XP for each skill individually at the end of the session.

Honestly, if you can't do addition and multlipication, you shouldn't be playing this system. Otherwise, try a simple calculator. The XP will just be listed on the skill itself on the character sheet, just like BW. And for the last part, read gaining XP.


That said, I do believe the Runequest RPG keeps track of experience for skills seperately. I am not familiar with the system and haven't looked it over myself, but you might want to check it out.

I will definitely check it out. I just realized on this forum I went from knowing of 2 systems to around 8 or 10. That makes me very happy.


Also, if you want to get into such granularity, you might want to look at sub-skills. That is, a big general "Science" skill, then a more specific "Physics" skill, and then a still more specific "Nuclear Engineering" skill. The more specific skills could require a higher "difficulty exponent", or perhaps specific skills for Nuclear Engineering would simply require very high challange numbers (since you'd likely be adding your ability, Science, Physics, and N. Engineering all together for it).

I've been thinking about using sub-skills a lot actually, and would love to, if I could find out how to make them work. Skill A may have Skill B, C, and D under it, but when you train, you train B, C, and D separately anyway, and even if you train skill A in a time lapse, then what effect would that have on B, C, and D? Difficulty exponent doesn't fix this, and raising DC's to make it so you can just add is not what I'm going to go for, because that would require too much structure for a balanced creation system.

Maybe the skills one teir above the more specific skills give a base stat for all of the subskills, then make stats into skills also?


As I mentioned before, a radical idea is to treat knowledge not as a skill to be rolled, but as something your character possesses like equipment. :smalltongue: It would mean keeping track of stuff like what they learned individually, but they would not need to be rolling to see if they retroactively knew something for years.

Well, along with my troubles with that above, a knowledge check also serves as "do you remember", along with did you ever know. Thats where chance comes in at knowledge, and it also means that knowledge skills can get rusty too.


Note that there is a difference between Knowledge skills (rolling to see if the character remembers a specific fact) and Practical skills (rolling to see if the character is capable of a specific skill). Nuclear Engineering, above, is more than a specific fact, and so a roll would involve the character piecing together everything they know and implementing it correctly to do whatever needs to be done in regards to nuclear physics. Knowledge about light water reactors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_water_reactor), though, would be a specific fact that the character either possesses or not, and they would not be able to design a light water nuclear reactor without some knowledge that it might exist.

A N. Engineering check would be to see if they know how to do it, not if they can. A check to see if they know about the light water reactors would probably be part of some more general knowledge skill, but this would still work too. You can't make a knowledge check about something you don't know exists, becuase you wouldn't know anything about it.


(The reasoning for this is twofold. One, it stops character from needing to spend or track XP on stuff they really should know anyways. Two, it prevents characters from spontaneously making technological advances just from having high skills. Yes, I am sure that Timmy is very skilled and knowledgeable. No, that does not automatically mean he can build starships with lightspeed travel in his basement.)

How do you suggest people make tech advances then?


Why? You might have fancing swords, side swords, arming swords, and hand-and-a-half swords, but there isn't much difference between swords in the same categories. A claymore and flamberge are basically the same weapon, wielded the same way with the same general properities. If you are talking about arming swords vs. hand-and-a-half swords, then the two are handled entirely differently and require different skills to use effectively. But there isn't really that much difference between a dao and a sabre.

They are all similar, yes, but also vastly different. Even less than an inch difference in your blade makes a huge impact on combat because of reach and weight, and the littlest difference can throw a person off who has been training with one type of sword.


This depends on what kind of game you want to play, really. If it is intended as a lengthy game of attrition, then yeah, I could see this applying. If it is meant as short adventures with some downtime, then this doesn't make much sense.

I would recommend it being an optional rule, if you include it.

This game is going to be simulationist/gamist, maybe with some storyteller elements. It is intended for realistic, yet still possibly epic, situations, therefore short, brutal combat at same "levels", but heroic, drawn out combat between higher or many of lower "level".


These are probably going to be the most arbitrary part of the system, simply because they could be broken up and represented differently for any kind of interpretation. For example, why Sense and Acumen, when Acumen is how keen your senses are? What is the difference between Intelligence and Mentality, when Intelligence is already broken up into multiple parts? Why Constitution, and not a Resolve or Willpower mental equilivant?

Acumen is sharpness of mind, ingenuity, and insight. Sense is the average ease to notice things, with the normal 5 senses and any others. Intelligence is how fast you can learn what way, and mostly what main skills you can learn at that speed. Iffy right now, I know, but that's because this is still largely in infancy. Mentality is the general stability of your mind, including your social skills. Its a more mental version of "Charisma", instead of the mystic stat it was. Con is physical and chemical (immune system) health. Acumen is Willpower, and Resolve is up to the player, making decisions is the entire game.


You might want to consider what your system will do, then create the stats to match it. If there is intended to be heavy social and political focus, then you will want a number of social stats. If a large part of the game will focus on tactical combat and researching new technologies, then organization and research would probably be worthy of stats.

This is what I have been trying to explain on my other posts: The customizability I want in this system should provide ways to do any of these things, and more. There is no limit for what you can do if you can do it in real life, and even most of that can be broken (in a balanced way) for infinite options, real life physics, and overall general awesomeness. I will update my first post on this thread within a couple of days, and I'm sorry about the delay to respond, finals week is usually really light on the homework, but I guess not his time.

[erikun]

Sorry for the late reply; I've actually been quite out of it for the last week or so. Also, I'm not replying to everything you've said. In part because I don't necessarily disagree with it, and in part because some of what I mentioned was just to make you aware of other possibilities available when designing a system.



But it is possible for a master to fail at a trivial tast, its just not common.
I could argue not. I mean, I don't fall off the road while driving. It's not that I fall off the road 1:20 times, or 1:216 times, or even 1:100,000 times. I would need to be significantly impared, or driving recklessly, or with terrible weather.

Then again, perhaps it's just a different view on what the dice are for. D&D and similar systems ask for a dice roll, then attempt to justify it retroactively - if you failed at a driving check, that means something happend to cause you to fail at driving. Compare this to Burning Wheel, where failing at a driving check means you still succeeded at driving, but something came up that prevented you from accomplishing your goal (such as a road being out).


If you are hiding in a box, you would get a bonus, not an insurance, that says people will have a harder time seeing you. However, theres also the question "Why the heck is there a box here?", unless it looks in its place. If someone is floating through the air silenced, no one is going to hear them, but it shouldn't be too hard to spot them.
That is kind of the opposite of what you said earlier, where Move Silently was a skill that gets rolled but hiding is based entirely on your positioning, with no related roll. :smalltongue: Mainly though, I was pointing out how you could easily justify a "Hide" check for the same reasons and logic as a "Move Silently" check.

I'm not saying you need seperate skills for each one - a more general "Stealth" check works just fine - mainly that the idea of not rolling for hiding seems to conflict with the rest of your system.


I see what you're getting at, but the problem is that you can't possibly keep track of every bit of info a character knows. For simple things like mentioned above, you can just assume, unless your character is mentally retarded, or doesn't need to know the phone number (cell phones), they know that.
Well, you don't keep track of every scrap of cloth or string an adventurer has. It is pretty much assumed that they have the material to mend clothing and equipment, rather than keeping track of the thread and patches of cloth to do so.

Beyond that, there's no reason why you can't have a knowledge skill. Heck, I seem to recall a system that has a resources skill, which is rolled whenever you want to see if your character has something to use. (Don't recall which system, though.)


Honestly, if you can't do addition and multlipication, you shouldn't be playing this system. Otherwise, try a simple calculator. The XP will just be listed on the skill itself on the character sheet, just like BW. And for the last part, read gaining XP.
I am saying that it is a lot of keep track of. More stuff to keeps tabs on is generally not better.


How do you suggest people make tech advances then?
Researching new technologies. The Wright brothers didn't advance aeronautics by reading about it and then knowing how it worked; they spend a lot of time/money/effort to get it right.


They are all similar, yes, but also vastly different. Even less than an inch difference in your blade makes a huge impact on combat because of reach and weight, and the littlest difference can throw a person off who has been training with one type of sword.
Eh, not so much, at least from my perspective. Someone well trained with a specific weapon might be thrown off by a slight adjustment in length or weight, but this is nowhere the difference between, say, wielding a rapier and a greatsword.

The other problem is that weapons of the same style were made with different sizes and weights. In fact, a sword was typically made to fit the size of an individual, and one spear was not guaranteed to be made with the same wood and quality as another. This could crop up just from switching between a personal sword to a generic-stock one produced by an armory, but would be especially noteworthy for an adventurer who kills dozens of different people and takes their weapons!

And given that the people the adventurer is killing (typically orcs) generally don't make their weapons but take them from others, the chances that any two swords recovered would be the exact same size, shape, and weight is pretty much non-existant.



I've been thinking about using sub-skills a lot actually, and would love to, if I could find out how to make them work. Skill A may have Skill B, C, and D under it, but when you train, you train B, C, and D separately anyway, and even if you train skill A in a time lapse, then what effect would that have on B, C, and D? Difficulty exponent doesn't fix this, and raising DC's to make it so you can just add is not what I'm going to go for, because that would require too much structure for a balanced creation system.

Maybe the skills one teir above the more specific skills give a base stat for all of the subskills, then make stats into skills also?
Well, there are several ways of doing it.

Some systems have an overall general skill or ability, such as "Melee" or "Agility", which is expensive to progress. Then they have individual skills, which are cheaper to progress. Individual skills have starting ranks of the overall general skill and progress from there; progressing overall skills a ranks also progressive all sub-skills a rank. That is, if you have Melee at 5 ranks, then your Rapier skill would have 5 ranks and you could progress it from there. If you had Melee 5 and Rapier 10, and then progressed Melee by one point, you would have Melee 6 and Rapier 11.

The problem with the system is that you can only have one level of sub-skills, to avoid heavy specialization for very cheap point-expense.

Other systems I've seen allow a "specialization" or a skill for an expense, granting a bonus when using that skill and the specialization applies. This could be extended further, but the problem here is that it doesn't give much depth.


What I was proposing is starting each sub-skill a 1 rank (or whatever the beginning is), allowing them to be bought upat the same rate as regular skills, and adding skills to sub-skills for checks... but making the difficulty very high for specialized tasks. That is, for our nuclear engineering example above, rolling would add Intelligence + Science + Physics + Nuclear Engineering all together, but the checks to make nuclear engineering rolls would be very high.

This is intended to represent how it is easy to pick up new stuff in a field, but it gets progressively more difficult as you advance. It also represents how very specific knowledge requires very specific training; you aren't going to know how to put together and maintain a nuclear reactor with just a lot of Intelligence and some ranks in Science.

It also allows as many sub-skills as you want, while the others are more limited.

[Yitzi]

Statistically, +d6-d6 is exactly the same as 2d6-7, which is the same as 2d6 with DCs all being 7 higher.

[Xechon]

Sorry for the late reply; I've actually been quite out of it for the last week or so. Also, I'm not replying to everything you've said. In part because I don't necessarily disagree with it, and in part because some of what I mentioned was just to make you aware of other possibilities available when designing a system.

It's completely fine. As you can see, I've yet to make progress on this, for much of the same reason.


I could argue not. I mean, I don't fall off the road while driving. It's not that I fall off the road 1:20 times, or 1:216 times, or even 1:100,000 times. I would need to be significantly impared, or driving recklessly, or with terrible weather.

Hmm, that's a valid point. Under perfect conditions, a master never fails, but a difficulty that is normally easily overcome can prove troublesome at times. Maybe I should have rolls for the difficulties instead of the skill. I actually like that a lot. I might just use that.


Then again, perhaps it's just a different view on what the dice are for. D&D and similar systems ask for a dice roll, then attempt to justify it retroactively - if you failed at a driving check, that means something happend to cause you to fail at driving. Compare this to Burning Wheel, where failing at a driving check means you still succeeded at driving, but something came up that prevented you from accomplishing your goal (such as a road being out).

I was thinking of rolls meaning how well you do something that time, so if you failed a driving check to, say, drive with a foot of snow on the road, then you would get stuck or slide out of control because your skill failed you, nothing else would hinder you, unless it was present at the time. And I do not like the burning wheels skill check or description system, but the leveling progress is what I like.


That is kind of the opposite of what you said earlier, where Move Silently was a skill that gets rolled but hiding is based entirely on your positioning, with no related roll. :smalltongue: Mainly though, I was pointing out how you could easily justify a "Hide" check for the same reasons and logic as a "Move Silently" check.

I'm not saying you need seperate skills for each one - a more general "Stealth" check works just fine - mainly that the idea of not rolling for hiding seems to conflict with the rest of your system.

Okay, so stealth is hide and move silently in that it is what is used to oppose the opponent's spot or listen check, but you would chose where, from the GM's description, you will hide, and will get a modifier to the result based on the effectiveness of your cover. What I'm saying in general here is that when it doesn't rely on the abilities of the character, the player makes the decisions and the GM applies a modifier for the situation. Badly worded, but that's essentially what I meant.


Well, you don't keep track of every scrap of cloth or string an adventurer has. It is pretty much assumed that they have the material to mend clothing and equipment, rather than keeping track of the thread and patches of cloth to do so.

Beyond that, there's no reason why you can't have a knowledge skill. Heck, I seem to recall a system that has a resources skill, which is rolled whenever you want to see if your character has something to use. (Don't recall which system, though.)

No resources skill, but scavenging would work. In my system, I would not like to have the "Standard Adventurer's Kit" problem. You may not be familiar with this, so I will explain. In my group of friends, whenever they need minute materials they don't want to keep track of (and sometimes not so minute), they would tell our overly-passive DM "Oh, that's in the standard adventurer's kit, right?", and the players have just bypassed the situation without effort. They used it for things from rocks to rope, and it made me very angry.

Back on topic, I think I will be using knowledge skills, for the sake of ease and because I already have based the workings of the skill system around it, and I personally don't want to deal with determining whether the character would know this or not.



I am saying that it is a lot of keep track of. More stuff to keeps tabs on is generally not better.

Well, I view it as a minor problem that goes along with a major fix. There will be one number that is added to as the character gains XP in that skill, at the end of that skill, so yeah, it would take keeping score, but it doesn't seem all that bad to me. Maybe I'll include a workspace for that on the character sheets.


Researching new technologies. The Wright brothers didn't advance aeronautics by reading about it and then knowing how it worked; they spend a lot of time/money/effort to get it right.

From my perspective, I believe that you can't really research technologies that don't yet exist. If you know what you want, you should see if you can find a way to do it within your knowledge, and while the process would take time and money, the idea can be created with just basic research and knowledge.


Eh, not so much, at least from my perspective. Someone well trained with a specific weapon might be thrown off by a slight adjustment in length or weight, but this is nowhere the difference between, say, wielding a rapier and a greatsword.

The other problem is that weapons of the same style were made with different sizes and weights. In fact, a sword was typically made to fit the size of an individual, and one spear was not guaranteed to be made with the same wood and quality as another. This could crop up just from switching between a personal sword to a generic-stock one produced by an armory, but would be especially noteworthy for an adventurer who kills dozens of different people and takes their weapons!

And given that the people the adventurer is killing (typically orcs) generally don't make their weapons but take them from others, the chances that any two swords recovered would be the exact same size, shape, and weight is pretty much non-existant.

I have not yet gotten to the physics yet, but I am planning to use it. I have done quite a bit of research on medieval weapons, focusing on the swinging swords, and have found that a little bit makes a big difference. Yes, there were weapons fitted to their wielders, but most were generic, mass-produced swords to fit the countless people going to war. When a person switches from a generic to a specialized, or vice-versa, they would need to get used to the new length and weight of the sword, and therefore would be worse at it than with their regular sword. A balance of advantages/disadvantages I see here is that someone who is used to a generic sword can find replacements quite easily and be just as good with that one as the other, as they are made (not exactly, but mostly) the same. Someone using a specialized blade would have to have a replacement specially made, but their skill in that sword would be better in general, if only slightly, than the generic ones.

Yes, there is a much greater difference when considering weapons that are used differently, but that can be covered by a skill system with multiple sub-skill layers(see below).

The type that switches weapons often has less skill in their weapons than someone who devotes their existence to using a longsword to the best of their ability. The specific skills would eventually rank up a more general related skill, so they could be sufficient at using a ton of different weapons, but not nearly as good as they could if they specialized.


Well, there are several ways of doing it.

Some systems have an overall general skill or ability, such as "Melee" or "Agility", which is expensive to progress. Then they have individual skills, which are cheaper to progress. Individual skills have starting ranks of the overall general skill and progress from there; progressing overall skills a ranks also progressive all sub-skills a rank. That is, if you have Melee at 5 ranks, then your Rapier skill would have 5 ranks and you could progress it from there. If you had Melee 5 and Rapier 10, and then progressed Melee by one point, you would have Melee 6 and Rapier 11.

The problem with the system is that you can only have one level of sub-skills, to avoid heavy specialization for very cheap point-expense.

Other systems I've seen allow a "specialization" or a skill for an expense, granting a bonus when using that skill and the specialization applies. This could be extended further, but the problem here is that it doesn't give much depth.


What I was proposing is starting each sub-skill a 1 rank (or whatever the beginning is), allowing them to be bought upat the same rate as regular skills, and adding skills to sub-skills for checks... but making the difficulty very high for specialized tasks. That is, for our nuclear engineering example above, rolling would add Intelligence + Science + Physics + Nuclear Engineering all together, but the checks to make nuclear engineering rolls would be very high.

This is intended to represent how it is easy to pick up new stuff in a field, but it gets progressively more difficult as you advance. It also represents how very specific knowledge requires very specific training; you aren't going to know how to put together and maintain a nuclear reactor with just a lot of Intelligence and some ranks in Science.

It also allows as many sub-skills as you want, while the others are more limited.

Hm, what if I started the skill chain off with the ability scores as the top skills, then branched down several times to the extremely specific? Each skill one below could be like 1/2 the ranks of the one above it, rounded down, then you only train the most specific ones, the ones you use, while you play. When an ability score increases or decreases, everything changes accordingly, and when a specific skill gets high enough, or there are a certain number of ranks that have been gained under a second tier skill, it could level up, and continue accordingly. Then, in time-lapses you could train higher skill tiers and that would affect everything else normally. So you could have Str.->Swing->Longsword, and longsword would be the one being trained with use, and when it gets to a point, swing goes up too. Then, after so many points in Swing went up (still being trained from longsword)Str would go up a point. Other skills under the same category would count towards the same higher-teir skill, and then when the GM says you get a week of free time, you can spend that week on training Swing or Str, so you don't have to keep track of all the advancements in longsword and how they affect the higher-tier skills.


Statistically, +d6-d6 is exactly the same as 2d6-7, which is the same as 2d6 with DCs all being 7 higher.

Yes, you are right, and I could just bump up the DCs 7 and leave it at that. I might include that as an optional rule, but I really like the feel of a -5/+5 bonus. So thanks, but that's not what I'm looking for.

[Spiryt]

Why? You might have fancing swords, side swords, arming swords, and hand-and-a-half swords, but there isn't much difference between swords in the same categories. A claymore and flamberge are basically the same weapon, wielded the same way with the same general properities. If you are talking about arming swords vs. hand-and-a-half swords, then the two are handled entirely differently and require different skills to use effectively. But there isn't really that much difference between a dao and a sabre.


There are a lot of differences and you can have "arming sword" that's much more similar in feel to dao than to other "arming sword".

And there were quite a few 'sabres' in history that weren't much like most dao at all.

In short, there could be huge difference between weapons in the same "categories" or in other words, D&D categories of weapons aren't particularly useful ones.

Definitely though making knowledges and skills different for every a bit different weapon seems like huge headache.

Seems like huge headache is side effect of what TS is aiming anyway, though. :smallwink:

[erikun]

I have not yet gotten to the physics yet, but I am planning to use it. I have done quite a bit of research on medieval weapons, focusing on the swinging swords, and have found that a little bit makes a big difference. Yes, there were weapons fitted to their wielders, but most were generic, mass-produced swords to fit the countless people going to war. When a person switches from a generic to a specialized, or vice-versa, they would need to get used to the new length and weight of the sword, and therefore would be worse at it than with their regular sword.
While a batch of weapons commissioned by King James of a specific blacksmith for the newest war are all likely to be similar, with the same amount of materials rationed out to produce swords with all a similar length/heft, King James ordering another batch of weapons - even from the same blacksmith - will likely net you a another batch with a different length/heft. If King James has been rather prolific with his warmongering, then there really isn't any guarantee that a sword from his stockpile will match any other sword anymore than a personalized one would.

There isn't anything wrong with having a skill along the lines of "my personal sword". Some systems actually have done that. However, it can be bothersome if a character ends up losing their sword... and I imagine quite annoying, if every weapon skill is the equilivant of "my personal sword" and the character has a habit of running through weapons.


Hm, what if I started the skill chain off with the ability scores as the top skills, then branched down several times to the extremely specific? Each skill one below could be like 1/2 the ranks of the one above it, rounded down, then you only train the most specific ones, the ones you use, while you play. When an ability score increases or decreases, everything changes accordingly, and when a specific skill gets high enough, or there are a certain number of ranks that have been gained under a second tier skill, it could level up, and continue accordingly. Then, in time-lapses you could train higher skill tiers and that would affect everything else normally. So you could have Str.->Swing->Longsword, and longsword would be the one being trained with use, and when it gets to a point, swing goes up too. Then, after so many points in Swing went up (still being trained from longsword)Str would go up a point. Other skills under the same category would count towards the same higher-teir skill, and then when the GM says you get a week of free time, you can spend that week on training Swing or Str, so you don't have to keep track of all the advancements in longsword and how they affect the higher-tier skills.
So, in other words, swinging around your Longsword levels up your Longsword skill. For every two levels in Longsword, you also get one level in Swing. And for every two levels in Swing, you also get a level in Strength. Something like that?

The biggest hurdle would be activities that directly level up a higher-ranked skill, or leveling multiple sub-abilities. For example, weightlifting would level up Strength directly. Climbing would level up Strength independently. The question is that you would likely end up with a Strength higher than 1/4 the Longsword levels.

What benefit (if any) does the higher Strength get you? Perhaps you could roll the highest number (Strength, Swing, Longsword) that applies, making specialization (directly working with a longsword) very valuable, but more general work (leveling up multiple weapons for high Swing, doing lots of physical activities for high Strength) good for more of a generalist.



There are a lot of differences and you can have "arming sword" that's much more similar in feel to dao than to other "arming sword".
My (attempted) point was that, while there is variants in different types of Arming Sword (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arming_sword) - and I may be using the term incorrectly - they are not much greater than the variants you may see in one specific type of sword.

Or to put it another way: if you are grouping all longswords together under one skill, then there are plenty of other swords that would fit within the range of longswords and work with the same skills.

[Xechon]

There are a lot of differences and you can have "arming sword" that's much more similar in feel to dao than to other "arming sword".

And there were quite a few 'sabres' in history that weren't much like most dao at all.

In short, there could be huge difference between weapons in the same "categories" or in other words, D&D categories of weapons aren't particularly useful ones.

Definitely though making knowledges and skills different for every a bit different weapon seems like huge headache.

Seems like huge headache is side effect of what TS is aiming anyway, though. :smallwink:

Complexity will be a large part in this system, yes, but I am trying to keep it organized so that a huge headache is not required. There is a seperate skill for each weapon, a weapon build system will be included, and there will be tier-ing skill levels, not to be confused with rank, which is its effective score. Instead of rolling a skill check to see if you fail/succeed, you will roll for the obstacles and test it against your rank at the bottom skill level. Not difficult, and yes, this still doesn't include ranking up and the tiers staggering yet, but that will just be another couple of lines. You will only need to keep track of skills that you have ranks in, skills can be created by the GM and players (because I can't include them all), etc. But the order should come from the way it is set up on the character sheet.


While a batch of weapons commissioned by King James of a specific blacksmith for the newest war are all likely to be similar, with the same amount of materials rationed out to produce swords with all a similar length/heft, King James ordering another batch of weapons - even from the same blacksmith - will likely net you a another batch with a different length/heft. If King James has been rather prolific with his warmongering, then there really isn't any guarantee that a sword from his stockpile will match any other sword anymore than a personalized one would.

There isn't anything wrong with having a skill along the lines of "my personal sword". Some systems actually have done that. However, it can be bothersome if a character ends up losing their sword... and I imagine quite annoying, if every weapon skill is the equilivant of "my personal sword" and the character has a habit of running through weapons.

Okay, so I will start by saying you are right. Different blacksmiths will vary in their templates on the same weapon. But I plan to have them act as the same. In this way, you can have a longsword made by bob and one made by tim, and use them as the same, but if you have a different type of longsword, one designed to be heavier or longer, lighter or smaller, they count as a different skill. I'll get into that when I address the weapon creation system.

Weapons will have a chance of actually being damaged, altered by it, or destroyed in combat, like in real life. Therefore, weapons can go by pretty fast if you are inexperienced in it. If you have a sword specialized to you, then it is a different skill under the weapon it's most like, and you get a bonus when using it. If it breaks, you will need to get a new one specially made for you to use that skill again. With a more general sword proficiency, you could get replacements easily, but you start lower in rank for that weapon.


So, in other words, swinging around your Longsword levels up your Longsword skill. For every two levels in Longsword, you also get one level in Swing. And for every two levels in Swing, you also get a level in Strength. Something like that?

The biggest hurdle would be activities that directly level up a higher-ranked skill, or leveling multiple sub-abilities. For example, weightlifting would level up Strength directly. Climbing would level up Strength independently. The question is that you would likely end up with a Strength higher than 1/4 the Longsword levels.

What benefit (if any) does the higher Strength get you? Perhaps you could roll the highest number (Strength, Swing, Longsword) that applies, making specialization (directly working with a longsword) very valuable, but more general work (leveling up multiple weapons for high Swing, doing lots of physical activities for high Strength) good for more of a generalist.

Probably not every two, but yeah, that's the gist.

Weightlifting in game would rank up lift, or a similar strength skill involving that muscle group. Therefore, you wouldn't be ranking str directly, but ranking str up would carry over into all of your str. skills. I probably shouldn't have the option of training higher-up skills in time-lapses just because they can say they trained x skill and find out what it does to the others in that group. The only big problem I see here (other than working out numbers) is the skills that could fall into multiple groups.


My (attempted) point was that, while there is variants in different types of Arming Sword - and I may be using the term incorrectly - they are not much greater than the variants you may see in one specific type of sword.

Or to put it another way: if you are grouping all longswords together under one skill, then there are plenty of other swords that would fit within the range of longswords and work with the same skills.

Each different style of arming sword would be a new skill, but that shouldn't matter to most people as I don't see the probability of someone training in every different variation of the sword. However, all arming swords are alike, and so all of those variations would lead into a general "arming sword" category.

The swords are alike, but different, and so the skill tier system existed, and I saw it worked goodly. (Thats god speaking there- Wheatly (http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQS8zwD3BpXKWRutM5ZFRBb70jbPcrkt qrg5W-YBdPTXYBbdMLu))

My goal right now is to get the skill system set up and a couple examples rolling (for my own sake), and right now I'm just trying to figure out how to work the tiers in so it will all fit nicely. I don't really want numbers to add up because I want to keep it an open tier system, where the players and GM can add or remove as many layers as they want and still have balance. It is probably an insanely simple solution, staring me in the face whilst I search for it, but nevertheless, it is eluding me. Any advice on this would be much appreciated:smallbiggrin:.

[erikun]

Weightlifting in game would rank up lift, or a similar strength skill involving that muscle group. Therefore, you wouldn't be ranking str directly, but ranking str up would carry over into all of your str. skills. I probably shouldn't have the option of training higher-up skills in time-lapses just because they can say they trained x skill and find out what it does to the others in that group. The only big problem I see here (other than working out numbers) is the skills that could fall into multiple groups.
You are unlikely to make a skill for every situation that could come up, so I would advise working out a system that can easily handle new skills or unexpected player actions (such as weightlifting to directly increase an ability) rather than trying to restrict those specific actions.

I mean, sure, you could say that weightlifting is a subskill under lift under strength, but what if a player wants to do a sci-fi Matrix-y trick of directly stimulating their muscles? Perhaps some rules of "downtime training" would fit better for limiting how much benefit they can receive.


Since we're apparently taking a closer look at the skill system for the moment, I think that asking a few questions would be a good idea. How "deep" would we want sub-skills to go? Strength > Swing > Longsword > My Specific Sword? Would "My Specific Sword" make better sense as a skill alongside Longsword, under Swing? Wound there be a "One-Handed Slashing" skill in between?

What do we want the 'average' depth of a skill to be? I mean, I could understand a highly, highly, highly specialized skill being unusually deep, but most everyday skills would probably be at about the same level.

This would help in deciding how strong actions and training would be. If, say, Longsword training is two levels deep (Strength > Swing > Longsword), then one-level deep skills are likely quite broad and difficult to train directly. On the other hand, directly training one would not be incredibly game-breaking. On the other hand, if Longsword is three levels deep (Strength > Swing > One Handed Slashing > Longsword), then directly training a one-level deep skill would be considered far more abusive.

How about revisiting how experience is gained from these skills? I know you mentioned XP through use, so maybe 100 Longsword swings would level up the Longsword skill. Looking at that now would give a good idea of how much swinging around a Longsword would increase Strength, along with other weapon and skill activities.

Now would also be a good time to look at how these skills are rolled. A Strength + Swing + Longsword roll would mean that engaging in other strength-based activities, and swinging around weapons other than a longsword, would greatly increase your skills with a longsword. Strength vs. Swing vs. Longsword (roll best) would mean focused use of a longsword would be the best option, otherwise just using everything to level up Swing and use that.